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September 17th @ Free Times Café

I am writing this little missive from Dawson City. That’s Dawson City in the Yukon, not Dawson’s Creek the titular location of a popular late 90s TV show that was shot in the U.S. but not in a place called Dawson’s Creek (it was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina) or the real Dawson Creek which is in B.C. I am in Dawson City which is a long way from pretty much anywhere (but don’t worry, I’ll be back for the September Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room show, which will be discussed in greater detail a bit later).

Dawson City is a pretty cool place – which is literally true. As I write this the temperature here is 2 while in Toronto its 17 so cool is perhaps an understatement. For a town of about 1,500 people there is a lot to do and see, much of it of course, based in the incredibly beautiful surroundings in which the city is nestled.

If you want to get to Dawson City all you have to do is get a flight to Vancouver and then another flight on a smaller plane to Whitehorse, (about nine hours or so in total) and then rent a car and drive about seven hours to Dawson (it’s a beautiful drive – at least it is before the snow arrives, which should be soon, actually). While you could do it in a day you’d be exhausted and would arrive in Dawson in the dead of night so you probably would need to stay at least one night in Whitehorse (which is also a pretty cool city).

You’ve probably stopped reading already and are booking your trip and that is great – but before you do I should point out that the flight to Whitehorse alone is about $950. And while it’s not a competition, you can fly to London England for about $200 less – and you’d be in London, England (you can fly to London Ontario for even less but then you’d be in London, Ontario).

This is one of the challenges of trying to see Canada – it’s a big country and getting around can be challenging – and expensive. That’s why so many folks go to Europe or the UK. And by Europe I don’t mean the band Europe who had that awful hit song The Final Countdown which I have now stuck in your head and I’m so sorry and perhaps to drive it out you could think about the song In A Big Country by Big Country which is more relevant to this piece than that other song that I won’t name even though the Big Country song is about Scotland which is kinda big if Europe (not the band) or the rest of the U.K (also not the band named U.K. but the agglomeration of countries called the UK) is your reference point but not really big in the way Canada is big.

Musically of course, the world can be pretty small. You can be at home and listen to Europe (but please don’t) or U.K. or Big Country. Not only can you listen to bands named after places (and to that list of course we can add Whitehorse for relevance or Boston or Chicago or Asia – which made no sense because that band had nothing to do with Asia) but you can listen to music written in different cities and countries and about those cities and countries. That is one of the really neat things about music, you can go lots of places by staying where you are.

But if you’re willing to leave your home and make your way to the Free Times Café (on College just west of Spadina) on Sunday, September 17, at 8 pm, you can let the folks at Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room take you on a musical trip around the world. O.K., perhaps not the whole world but a surprisingly large part of the world. And unlike flying to Whitehorse or London, England or even London, Ontario, it really won’t cost much at all. There is no cover and the food and beverage selection is so much better than on a plane.

Hope to see you there.

Jonathan

P.S. Another good thing about Dawson City is that I haven’t seen or heard a bagpipe at all – something sadly that can’t be said about the Living Room.

Yellow Submarine
Drifting Away
Harvest Moon
Nobody Answers
Dean’s Belize Song
Sweet Old World
Right Here, Right Now
Hanging Round The House
Lay Down Sally
People Are Crazy
I Am Weary
Down In The Boondocks
Unchain My Heart